In the shoe giant’s legal fight against Lil Nas X and a Brooklyn art collective’s “Satan shoes,” a judge sided with Nike Thursday morning, issuing a temporary restraining order against the unofficial Nikes.
After suing the Brooklyn collective Mschf earlier this week over the revamped Air Max 97 shoes — a limited-edition run of 666 pairs complete with pentagrams and human blood bound to the rapper’s Satan-featuring “Montero” video — Nike filed an injunction and a temporary restraining order motion with a federal judge on Wednesday to stop the shoes from being sold.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Nike claimed at the hearing Thursday that the “Satan shoes,” despite being an unauthorized release, had harmed the company’s image, with thousands of people on social media bashing the shoes and threatening to boycott the company.
Six hundred and sixty-five pairs of the shoes were said to have sold out in under a minute, with the 666th pair being given away.
All but one pair of the “Satan shoes” had already been delivered to buyers, according to Mschf’s attorneys, and because the group has no plans to make more of the sneakers, the temporary restraining order was unnecessary.
Judge Eric Komitee of the United States District Court eventually sided with Nike and granted the temporary restraining order against Mschf. Mschf claimed in a statement released after the judge’s decision that their “Satan shoes” were a sort of continuation of the unauthorized “Jesus Shoes” Nikes that the group released previously without facing legal action from the brand. However, owing to the temporary restraining order, the group announced that a giveaway for the 666th pair will be put on hold “indefinitely.”
